“Absolutely,” Shayla said, briskly crossing to the back door that led into the laundry room just off his kitchen. She fumbled the keys and dropped them—oh dear God—as Harry continued to just laugh and laugh and laugh.
She finally made it inside. The house was warm—he’d clearly turned off the air-conditioning before leaving this morning. That was the kind of thing that made a man more attractive to real-life, nonfictional women like her—the fact that he was both environmentally conscious and economical—not his physical attributes, as nice as they might be.
Shayla set his keys on the kitchen counter with his phone and his wallet, and headed for the hallway that led to the bedrooms. She’d given one bedroom a peek last night—it was the first door on the left, right across from the bathroom. It was small, with a utilitarian, narrow twin-size bed against one wall, and a single chest of drawers. She’d assumed it was the guest bedroom—it certainly didn’t belong to any teenaged girl she’d ever met—but as she now went farther down the hall, she realized that there was only one other doorway at the very end.
It led to the master, with its own attached bath, and…“Holy crap.”
Harry said the obvious. Peter gave the master bedroom to Maddie.
Teen girls weren’t at all different from teen boys when it came to both laundry and life’s clutter. The room was a mess, with about a dozen cardboard moving boxes scattered about. Most weren’t even close to unpacked but all were definitely rummaged through. Peter had bought his daughter some lovely furniture, including a big, wooden bookshelf that held maybe ten books total on a single shelf, and a dresser that had still-empty drawers.
It was textbook passive-aggressiveness, and Maddie’s subtext was clear: I’ll live here, but I’ll hate both it and you, so I won’t unpack.
Damn, Harry said as Shayla went back to the smaller bedroom where Peter’s running shorts—the lightweight kind with the mesh underwear sewn in—were right where he’d described them. In a white wire slide-out basket that was part of a tiny but carefully organized closet.
She loved her boys like crazy, but no way would she ever, not in a million years, give them the master bedroom in any house.
You’re not a near-total stranger to them, Harry pointed out as she went into the hall bathroom and found a stack of clean towels in the linen closet. You’re also not a male near-total stranger and your kids aren’t female.
Shay started to take from the bottom, assuming those would be the oldest, but they were all clearly brand-new. She grabbed a washcloth, too, then headed back into the kitchen as Harry continued, Father-on-daughter sexual abuse is common enough to be a thing. Your SEAL was thoughtful enough to try to make Maddie feel as safe as possible by giving her the privacy that comes with having her own bathroom.
Harry had a point.
This guy is pretty freaking amazing, he said as he followed her out into the yard, where Peter was still working on his hair.
“Here,” Shay said, holding out the shorts. “Put these on, and then I’ll work on your hair, make sure you got it all.”
“Thanks,” he said. He let go of the pressure handle, and the water shut off as he effortlessly caught the shorts that she tossed him.
Shay politely turned her back and pretended to be fascinated by the roofline of the house as he pulled them on.
“But I think I got it all,” Peter said. “You don’t need to—”
“I’m pretty sure you still have a little in your ear,” she said.
“Fuck. Really?”
“It’s not like you could see it,” she said, turning back. “I mean, even with a mirror, it would’ve been easy to miss.” He was clearly feeling discouraged, so she pointed to one of two sling-style lounge chairs that were artfully arranged on the pavers that made up the patio, a little table between them. “Let’s move that onto the lawn—well, whatever this is that you Californians think makes a lawn, and may I just say that you are so, so wrong—and adjust it so it’s more flat. So you can lie back, dangle your head off the edge, and let me get the last of it.”
He was not happy. “There’s no way you can do that without getting wet.”
“That’s okay.” Shay put the towels down on the second chair as she started to move the first herself.
As expected, Peter came to assist. “No, it’s not.”
She told him, “If you think for one second that after I help you, I’m not rushing home to bleach the hell out of these clothes and take an extra-exfoliating shower myself…? You are greatly deluded, my friend.”
He smiled at that. “Still…”
“You have shit in your ears.” Shayla went point-blank as she also pointed to the chair. “Sit.”
Peter sat.
“Stay upright for a sec,” she ordered. “I want to get that last bit out before we do a final pass with the hose.”
Shay got the washcloth a little damp while Harry walked in a circle around them.
He likes being ordered around. That’s good to know for when you have screaming animal-sex, he commented as she leaned down and gently wiped a clump of god-knows-what from Peter’s ear. It’ll make it extra hot.
“Shh,” Shayla hissed at the exact moment that the SEAL looked up at her and their eyes met. “It. Shit. Indeed. In your ears.”
Harry laughed, because God, she sounded like an idiot.
“These are skills that I haven’t practiced since Frankie grew out of that toddler put-your-dinner-everywhere-but-in-your-mouth phase,” she said while she used a different part of the cloth to briskly but thoroughly clean the entire rest of Peter’s ear. “But some things a mother just never forgets.”
Oh, good. Compare him not just to a two-year-old, but to your own two-year-old, Harry said. Way to create some real sexual tension, Mom; get it sparking and popping.
Shay clenched her teeth as she pushed Peter’s hair back from his other ear. Creating sexual tension was not what she was going for here. God, this man had nice ears, nice hair, nice face, nice neck, nice shoulders and chest…God.
Peter cleared his throat. “I’m keeping you from your writing.”
What? It was such a non sequitur, she laughed her surprise. “Nah, you’re really not,” she said, stepping back a bit and checking to make sure both of his ears were clean. She tapped his shoulder. “Come on. Lie back and let me do your hair.”
Again, he obeyed, but he moved so that his shoulders and head were down at the end where the lounger’s feet normally went. “I’m afraid if I go the other way, I’ll tip it over,” he explained, and yes, he was probably right.
As he let his head hang off the end, he’d pulled his legs up so that his knees were bent.
To hide his boner.
To support his back, she corrected Harry. And of course, Peter didn’t let his head actually dangle, he used his incredible eight-pack of abs to hold it up.
He met her eyes again and said, “Please be careful not to hit yourself with any backsplash.”